Respice Finem
by Aesir Vanas
Summary: Respice Finem: The skies around Yafutoma light up with battle as empires collide. What happened next has been written in tales for years, but there's always another perspective.


Been a while, but here's the results of my latest trek through Skies of Arcadia Legends.We've heard all about Vyse and friends, so I thought it'd be interesting to see it from another perspective. Ladies and gentlemen, _Respice Finem_

**Ch.1: Argonautica**

"Enemy fleet, range roughly 11km!"

"Incoming fire, mark 326!"

"Cruiser _Glorioso_ hit!"

"_Lynx_ ordering course change to bearing 326, all-ahead full! We're going in!"

The four massive engines of the _Serpent_ class battleship _Ex Igne Resurgam_ burst into life, the harnessed energies of the Yellow moonstone hurling the vessel forwards at speeds unmatched by any other battleship in the world. All around it, the rest of the armada rumbled into life, on a dead course for the massed Yafutoman fleet. The wooden vessels fired again, beautiful plumes of smoke heralding the shells that cut through the armada once more, the distinctive tearing sound blasting through the air, one barely skimming the _Resurgam_'s bridge. Throughout the armada, ships were hit by the Yafutoman shells, but continued onwards, the distinctive thick armour of the Valuan ships turning aside all but the most concentrated fire.

At a distance of 8 kilometers from the foriegn fleet, the order was given.

"_Draco _allowing free firing, sir!"

"Gunnery Control, fire at will!"

From his chair on the bridge, the Resurgam's captain smiled as the battleship shuddered, the view being obscured by the smoke hurled up by the forward turrets. As the smoke cleared, the scene was one of carnage. Yafutoman vessels hammered out broadsides wildly as the tracer trails of Valuan lanced into their ranks, several vessels falling out of formation ablaze from stem to stern. They hadn't been totally impotent, however. The somewhat more lightly armoured cruisers and frigates in the armada were far more vulnerable to the foriegn artillery and a number were crashing into the Deep Sky was he watched.

What the hell are they doing? Why do they keep firing their cannon? Surely they realise that we're just turning aside most of their shots...

He'd almost got an idea of what the Yafutoman strategy was, when he was shaken out of his thoughts by an almighty explosion. Ahead, a Yafutoman battleship, one of the largest they'd fielded, exploded into a shower of burning matchsticks, the vessels around it being visibly rocked by the shockwave.

Say what you will about Admiral Vigoro, he never does anything by halves.

"Sir, the Yafutomans appear to be leaving formation... What on earth are they doing? Broadsiders always work better in a wall..."

Oh dear. That was what he was thinking of earlier. While their cannon are broadly useless, there's one other thing they can rely on.

"Hard diving turn to port, flank speed!"

"Sir!"

"Do it, damnit!"

Across the armada, alert captains had realised what was going on, several vessels including the rather distinctive _Lynx_ were all hurling themselves into turns in various directions as 7000 meters away, a veritable wall of flame shot into the sky, followed moments later by a second. As the torpedoes screamed into the sky, even the less experienced or arrogant captains realised what was going on, but it was far too late. Lances of flame shot from high above hurling between ships and slamming into the unfortunate ones. The main flaw of the _Serpent_ was relatively weak deck armour, and the torpedo vollies were blasting apart numerous vessels. From the bridge of the _Resurgam_, it looked like a literal rain of missiles, the ones that crashed around it plunging into the lower cloud layers with plumes like those on a puddle. Now significatly below the plane of battle, the _Resurgam_ was almost hit by a wrecked warship, the once proud vessel almost cracked in two with a direct hit to the magazine, propellers still spinning idly. As it plummeted through the clouds in a massive 'splash' of vapour, the vessel's flags wre torn off by the shock and carried away on the wind. Moments later, a shadow fell across the _Resurgam_'s bow as the rain of torpedoes finally slowed, eventually stopping.

"I guess they're re-loading..."

"Sir, we've got one ship directly above us, looks like it's hiding above the clouds... I think it's acting as fire-control."

"We've got torpedoes loaded. Show them the wrath of our armada."

The torpedo tubes in the aft section of the ship flicked open, a pair of torpedoes ascending on pillars of flame. Just before they entered the main plane of battle, the sky lit up once more with gunfire, the armada rallying with impressive speed. For all their skill, the crew of the Yafutoman fire-control ship had a single spot they could never cover: directly below themselves. They never saw the two missiles that slammed into their lower decks before exploding, breaking their back. It crashed through the main battle, splitting in two as it went, unused cannon, cannonballs that would never see the battle they'd affected so badly joining the unfortunate crewmembers who'd fallen from the shattered decks in their final plummet to whatever lurked beneath the clouds in the Deep Sky.

"Take us up. The Yautomans are still strong, even without a fire-control ship."

As the _Resurgam_ rejoined the battle, the fleets had closed to point blank in a vicous war of broadsides. While the Valuan ships were tougher and faster, the Yafutomans were being annoyingly tenacious and were proving themselves skilled in hitting the weaker superstructure of the ironclads. Entering the melée, the _Resurgam_'s first broadside crippled a small frigate that was trying to scuttle out of the battle proper. It flew through a maze of burning and sinking vessels, looking for a worthy foe, broadsides and turrets lashing out at small ships who tried to get close.

"Dead ahead, we've got a big one! Ready all turrets to fi-"

Before the sentence could be completed, the bridge seemed to explode in a shower of glass and shrapnel, the cries of the wounded drowning out the warning signals and sounds of the battle. The last thing Captain Emil Marcos saw was a gaping wound in his bridge, a massive hole gouged out of the port side that had shredded his command post with wreckage. The smoke ahead cleared, and he saw something impossible, a sleek silver and blue warship cruising past, like a _Spectre_ cruiser but impossibly more elegant and refined... a worthy foe indeed.

And then, all was black.

To Come:

Ch2: Into the Night

Ch3: As Lightning Fall

Ch4: Fire and Light

Ch5: Ex Igne Resurgam

**Ch.2: Into the Night** (Preview)

"-tain? Captain? Oh, thank the moons. He's coming to, and not a moment too soon."

Cold. That was the first thing he noticed. Cold and wet. Why was he wet? Last thing he knew, he was on the bridge of the _Resurgam_. Then the bridge exploded. Given the fact that heaven probably wasn't cold and wet, he was forced to conclude he was alive.

"Wh What happened?"

"We took a shot straight to the bridge. Turns out that it saved us though. We crash-dived to get away from the battle, and then... something came. A blue creature, more massive than anything I've ever seen before. It literally blasted the fleet away in one big flap. If we'd not have dived, we'd have crashed straight into those big walls around the field. As it happened, we're now lost and sinking, but at least we're alive."


End file.
